David Baltimore on the Science Debate

Bear with me for yet another post about the Science Debate in 2008. Nobel Laureate David Baltimore, President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) spoke today at their annual meeting in Boston. The following excerpt from his talk fully underscores how seriously most scientists consider this issue, especially for this election cycle.

“We have a Presidential election coming. Science and technology have played at best minor roles in the primary campaigns. Now that we have a limited candidate pool, it is time for our community to be heard.

“A debate on science has been proposed and some 15,000 people and many organizations have signed onto the proposal. We should write to the candidates and encourage them to participate.

“Their view of science, whether they want to hear its conclusions or want to hide from them, whether they want to have the thinking of our community represented in the White House or relegated to a distant office, whether they will support intensive investigation of alternative energy sources, whether they will liberate the biomedical community to fully investigate the power of stem cell technology, whether they will face the reality that abstinence is not the only way to protect people against HIV transmission, whether they will provide leadership or bury their head in the sand when tough choices must be made, whether they will leave a better country than the one they inherit, all of these are critical questions with which they should be faced.